Carry On
by LaylaBinx
Summary: Because sometimes snatching Peter up by the scruff of the neck and physically hauling him away from whatever kind of trouble he's landed himself in is the only way to deal with things. AKA: Five Times Yondu Carried Peter and One Time He Just Held Him
1. The Trials of Raising a Terran

**Hello all! Hope you're doing well! I've been tinkering with idea since the second movie came out but haven't had a chance to do anything with it until now. It's mostly just a collection of semi-cute moments between our favorite grumpy Ravager and his surrogate son because I'm still in mourning thanks to James Gunn and this is how I cope. If you're familiar with my writing you'll know how much I love scrappy!Peter so this whole first chapter is dedicated to that. Also the title does indeed come from Carry on my Wayward Son because I find there are few situations which are not improved by the musical presence of Kansas. Anyway, hope you all enjoy it! :D**

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There have been very few moments in his life when Yondu felt out of his element. He's been in places he had no business being in, grappled with people who could and definitely would have had his head on a plate if they got the opportunity, and ended up in situations he absolutely should not have survived. But he came out on top in every single scenario because he's a Ravager and that's what Ravagers do. Ravagers are strong, tough, and ruthless and they never, ever go down without a fight. He greets every situation head on because that's what he's always done.

That being said, Yondu will be the first to admit that he is completely and hilariously out of his element when it comes to the trials and tribulations of raising a stubborn, scrappy Terran child who has more mouth than brains half the time. He knew the kid would be a handful when he decided to keep him but he was not prepared for just _how much_ of a handful Peter would actually be when it came down to it. Yondu does not feel out of his element very often but that feeling has skyrocketed exponentially since the arrival of Peter Quill on his ship.

He had expected the kid to run and hide and cry every time he came across one of the Ravagers on the ship. He expected him to beg to be taken back to that crappy blue planet of his and dropped off where they found him. Hell, he at least expected him to be afraid of them. And Peter was... for a grand total of two days. After that he squared up and fought back, refusing to be the weakest link on a ship full of killers and thugs. Yondu expected a lot of things from Peter in the very beginning but what he didn't expect was for the boy to go from fear to 'fight me' in the span of a few days.

None of the other Ravagers took him seriously at first, teasing and mocking him relentlessly and seeing just how far they could push him before he pushed back. As it turned out, it didn't take much for Peter to reach his tipping point. He's small and wiry and fast and all it took was one wrong word or an ill-timed shove to set him off. The boy will jump head-first into a fight at the drop of a hat and it might be cute if it didn't involve Peter launching himself at his assailant like a tiny, child-shaped missile. And yeah, sometimes he comes out a bit worse for wear in the end but Peter has more than proven in the short time he's been there that he's not going to take their abuse sitting down.

Yondu's not sure if it makes Peter stupidly brave or just plain stupid but the boy doesn't back down from anyone or anything on the ship. He's a tiny ball of unresolved anger and frustration and grief and he's more than happy to channel those emotions into a brawl if it comes down to it. Peter may be small but he's not a pushover and the Ravagers have quickly found out that even though Peter is never the one to start the fights, he can most definitely finish them.

As such, Yondu has come to expect that any kind of scrap or scuffle that takes place aboard the ship usually involves Peter in some way. Peter is the newest, youngest, and smallest member of their ragtag group and will subsequently be the subject of intense hazing and harassment for at least another few weeks. Once again, the kid doesn't go looking for fights but that doesn't mean the other Ravagers don't single him out either.

So when Yondu loses track of their tiny new Ravager and hears the distinct sound of fighting coming from somewhere down the hall, he mentally sighs and stalks off toward the noise. The brat can't seem to keep himself out of trouble for one day and Yondu is sorely tempted to slap a leash on him and not let him out his sight until the kid is old enough to grow chest hair.

It doesn't take long to find the source of the commotion or the tiny ball of fury involved in the middle of it. Peter is grappling with a much larger Ravager named Met and he doesn't seem to be on the winning side in this. Met has three feet and two hundred pounds on the kid and watching the fight is a lot like watching a giant swat away an annoying insect. Peter is nothing if not persistent though and every time he gets knocked down he bounces right back up.

The captain rounds the corner just as Peter launches himself at the other Ravager with an enraged snarl, teeth bared and eyes narrowed. Peter tackles him at the middle and to his credit, he's able to knock Met off balance and into the wall behind him. The kid is scrabbling for something in the other Ravager's pocket and his arms are just a little too short to reach whatever it is he's searching for.

Met growls and grabs a handful of Peter and slings him backwards like a dirty rag. The kid is airborne for a second or so before he crashes into the ground near Yondu's feet. Peter doesn't even notice the Ravager captain's appearance, he's too busy swiping a stream of blood away from his mouth with the back of his sleeve and pushing himself back up for another attack.

Persistent and stubborn; good qualities to have in a Ravager but not if they're going to get you killed. Yondu sees this as his time to intervene and he reaches out and snags Peter around the waist with one arm just before the boy launches himself across the room again.

"Alright, alright," he says, struggling to maintain his grip on the writhing, wiry boy in his arm. "That's enough. I dunno what started this fight'a yers but I ain't gonna let you two ruin my ship while yer tryin' to kill each other."

Peter struggles valiantly against the arm around him, pulling and tugging and doing everything he can to break free. He's squirming and wriggling like a bag full of pissed off cats and he's apparently less concerned with who's holding him and more concerned with taking another shot at Met. Yondu rolls his eyes and jostles him once to break his grip. "I said knock it off, brat."

Met flashes an ugly grin at him. "Yeah, brat," he parrots back, eyes leveled on Peter. "Better do what the captain says."

For some reason that just adds fuel to the fire and Peter starts struggling again. It's more furious this time, desperate and full of rage, and Peter is a lot stronger than anyone seems to give him credit for. Yondu growls and gets a better grip on the writhing child in his arms and squeezes him tightly. "Stubborn little…" he mumbles, fading off because Peter still hasn't stopped struggling and it appears he has no intention of stopping anytime soon either.

"Alright, that's enough," he grumbles shortly, adjusting his grip again and turning back down the hall, carting Peter off in the opposite direction. Sometimes snatching Peter up by the scruff of the neck and physically hauling him away from whatever kind of trouble he's landed himself in is the only way to deal with things. The child struggles for a second or so more before giving up, either from exhaustion or the fact that he realizes it's a losing battle, and hanging irritably in Yondu's arm.

The captain fights the urge to smirk at the sulking child in his arm and continues to carry Peter down the hall away from Met. Peter weighs a grand total of fifty-three pounds soaking wet but he's pouting right now and trying to make himself heavy out of spite and he's hanging there like a bag of wet sand.

He's not fighting as much anymore though so it seems like he's calmed down to some extent. Yondu doesn't trust him not to run back the fight the second he sets him down though so he keeps the kid wrapped in one arm and tucked against his side as he walks down the hall.

By the time he's reasonably confident he's put enough space between Peter and Met, they've reached the opposite end of the ship. He stops at the end of the hallway and sets Peter down, standing tall and imposing in front of him just in case the boy tries to make a break for it.

"Alright, brat," he begins gruffly, leveling Peter with a look that indicates he's in no mood for any of the boy's sass or backtalk. "Ya wanna tell me what that was all about?"

Peter is glaring, not so much at Yondu but just at the situation in general. He's still shifty and tense and angry and he's rolling something around in his mouth that's making a very tiny rattling sound with each pass.

Yondu frowns and drops down to crouch in front of him, opening his palm beneath Peter's jaw. "Spit," he tells him simply. It's not a request.

Peter slumps a little in defeat and spits whatever's in his mouth into the captain's hand. It's a tooth. _His_ tooth.

The Ravager captain stares at it incredulously for a moment. He would have been marginally more alarmed if he hadn't done some reading on Terran biology that stated the juveniles lost their first set of teeth during childhood before growing a more permanent set in their place. Hopefully this was one of the first set. Still, it doesn't change the fact that Peter just had one of his teeth knocked out by one of the other Ravagers and he needs to get a handle on this before it gets out of control.

He sighs and shakes his head, dropping the tooth into his pocket. "Yer more of a handful than I know what to do with, boy," he mumbles more to himself than Peter. He looks at the Terran child again and tries a different tactic. "What started the fight?"

Peter fidgets uncomfortably for a moment and doesn't answer.

"'ey," Yondu says, reaching out and tapping Peter's chin up with one knuckle. "I asked you a question, boy, an' I ain't gonna ask again."

Peter lets out a heavy, heaving sigh in response and slumps a bit more. "He stole my Walkman," he mumbles finally, voice quiet and sullen. He still looks angry but he also looks like he's right on the verge of tears as well.

Yondu blinks at him. If he had learned anything from having the boy on his ship it was that Peter was weirdly attached to that silly music player he always carried around.

"So ya got into a fistfight with someone twice yer size over a music box?" he asks incredulously.

Peter shoots him an impressively furious glare. "It's not just a music box," he grinds out, tiny fists balled at his side. "My mom gave it to me and it's the only thing I have left from earth and he took it!"

The captain holds his hands up in surrender. "Alright, alright, no need to get worked up," he says because Peter looks like he's either about to cry or punch something and he just hasn't made up his mind which.

He sighs and shakes his head, knowing full well Peter will go right back to Met the second he lets him out of his sight and will more than likely get several more teeth knocked out for his efforts. "Listen, if I get yer music player back for ya will ya stop tryin' to take on people double yer size?"

Peter sniffs a little and nods, wiping his bloody mouth with the back of his sleeve again. He still looks like he wants to fight something but then again he's looked like that ever since they picked him up. It's almost become a defense mechanism of sorts.

"Good," Yondu says with a small, satisfied nod. He stands slowly and physically picks Peter up and turns him in the direction of another hallway. "Kraglin's on the main deck. Why don't you go find him an' stay up there for a while? That way ya won't get tangled up in anythin' else for today."

Peter bobs his head once in a agreement and starts off down the indicated hallway. He's still learning his way around the ship but Yondu is at least reasonably certain he can get to the main deck of the ship without getting mixed up in something along the way. He can hope at least.

He watches Peter stumble along until he's out of sight before he straightens his coat and walks off the other direction to have a conversation with Met.

When Peter gets back to his room later that evening his Walkman is sitting on his cot. Peter doesn't mention it and Yondu doesn't bring it up. There's also no discussion as to why Met has a broken hand the next day. No one tries to take the Walkman again.

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 **Thanks so much for reading guys! More to come soon! :D**


	2. Florian Flu Fallout

**Hello all! You guys are the best! I'm so happy you're all liking this story so much, thanks so much for reading guys! And since I love you all to pieces, here's a sick!fic for you. Hope you all like it! :D**

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Peter looks like lukewarm hell. The phrase "death warmed over" is a fairly accurate description but even death looks better in comparison to the ill Terran staggering around the ship. He's pale, sweating, shivering, and looks like a strong breeze could knock him over without the slightest effort. Basically the kid looks all around miserable and has since the day before. To his credit though, Peter has yet to complain about it.

Yondu should have seen it coming honestly. Florian Flu is rampant in this part of the quadrant and it never fails to strike some member of his crew every time they have to travel through here for a job. Most of his men have been vaccinated for it, a combination of preventative measure and learned experience spurring their decision. Florian Flu is a horrible illness and those who have caught in the past are in no great hurry to experience it again and those who haven't are dead set on not getting infected. The disease was virulent and debilitating enough to cripple an entire ship in a matter of days and no one wanted to risk that so they got vaccinated at the first opportunity.

Peter isn't vaccinated though. He's one of the few crew members who isn't but then again he's never needed to be. This is the first time he's ever been in this section of the quadrant and while every other member of the crew was fully aware of the absolute misery of Florian Flu, Peter wasn't.

Not only that, the kid's shot records (or lack thereof) aren't exactly something Yondu keeps up with one a regular basis so he didn't even think to send the susceptible Terran child to the nearest clinic to get the vaccine before they arrived. Peter is usually healthy enough to brush off any kind of galactic illness they encounter and aside from a few fights and the occasional training accident, he's never needed to spend any significant amount of time in the medical bay either. So no, Yondu doesn't think to get Peter vaccinated before they take on this job and because of that, Peter almost immediately catches the dreaded disease.

Florian Flu hits with all the grace of a meteor and strikes quick and hard, leaving its host at its mercy until it burns itself out. It comes on suddenly and almost always starts the same way with a crushing headache, dizziness, and loss of balance. The onset is quickly followed by a myriad of other symptoms like high fever, aches and pains, fatigue, nausea; basically everything that can make its victim feel as terrible as possible in the shortest amount of time.

The one thing that sets Florian Flu apart from other similar illnesses is the appearance of bright purple splotches on the backs of the hands and along the insides of the wrists. The brighter the splotches, the more virulent the infection is. By the time the virus burns itself out, the splotches fade to dark, dull, bruise-like splatters across the skin that fade more and more as the dead virus works its way out of the body. Florian Flu is a quick disease, usually only lasting for 3-4 days at most, but those few days are absolute hell for those who are infected.

Right now Peter is about in day two. He's weak and shaky and miserable, shivering all over and barely remaining upright. He's been sneezing on and off for the better part of the day and keeps swiping one purple-splotched hand across his nose which has not stopped running for the past twenty-four hours. As contagious as the Florian Flu is, however, none of the other Ravagers seem bothered by the fact that Peter is clearly infected. It's probably because they've all been vaccinated and the Flu can't infect someone once they've received the vaccine. And 99.9% of the crew has been vaccinated since their last trip to this section of the quadrant. All of them except Peter.

The infected Terran sneezes, sniffs uselessly, and swipes his hand across his nose again. One whole sleeve is covered in snot and the kid looks like he's one hot second away from tipping over at any given moment. He keeps working though, stubborn brat that he is, and honestly Yondu would be a little proud of him for gumption displayed if he didn't look like he was about to die. About the seventeenth time the boy wipes his nose and suppresses a shiver, the Ravager captain sighs, stands, and makes his way over to him.

"Quill," he calls out, loud enough to be heard over the grumbling hum of the engine below. Peter jumps slightly and turns to look at him, face pale and eyes glassy. A fever flush is coloring both cheeks high up into the crescent just below his eye and he's shivering even though it's easily eighty-something degrees down here. His nose is the color of the Ravager's red jackets and the backs of his hands are mottled in bright purple splotches.

Yondu comes to a stop just in front of him and drops down to a crouch so he's eye-level with the sick boy. "Yer done for tonight, runt. Go to yer room."

Peter blinks in confusion and looks around the room briefly like he's trying to determine if this is some kind of joke. No one is ever released from their shift early, especially if they're in the middle of something. And Peter is clearly in the middle of something. Maybe. He's been working at something with a wrench for the past forty-five minutes so he's sure he's doing something important even if he's not entirely sure what that is at the moment.

He frowns and sniffs again. It doesn't help. "Did I do something wrong?" he asks and his voice is thick and nasally from all the junk clogging his sinuses.

"No, but you've been workin' at that bolt for nearly an hour now an' I need someone who can get things done a little faster around here," Yondu tells him and yeah, it sounds a little harsh, but he's still got a reputation to uphold and if it looks like he's going soft on Peter he'll never live it down.

And damn it all if the kid doesn't look absolutely _stung_ by the remark. "I was just trying to-" he mumbles, gesturing toward said bolt with one purple splattered hand. The words die off and he huffs miserably in defeat as he sneezes for like the ninetieth time that day. His shoulders slump, his head droops, and he sniffs again even though it's clearly not helping.

Yondu sighs heavily and rolls his eyes a little. "Boy, quit actin' like I'm about to kick you off this ship because you couldn't tighten a bolt."

It comes across sharp so he sighs again and changes his tone. "Listen kid, yer sick, anyone with eyes can see that, an' I'm tellin' ya to quit for the night so you can go to yer bunk and get some sleep. I ain't mad at ya an' you ain't done nothin' wrong. Yer sick an' ya need the rest, that's it." He shrugs a bit before continuing. "Also, you look like shit an' it's scaring away the crew."

Peter coughs hoarsely and sniffs. "Rude," he mutters but he looks marginally relieved that he's not in imminent danger of being ejected from the ship like he thought.

"Damn right," Yondu retorts, reaching out and taking the wrench away from Peter and physically steering him away from whatever it was he was working on. He turns him in the direction of the hall and gives him a tiny nudge in the right direction. "Now go to bed."

Peter nods once, coughs, and then trudges slowly down the hall. It's a testament to how awful he truly feels because he doesn't even try to come up with some kind of snappy comment in return. Yondu watches him go, frowning slightly at the boy's hunched, slumping walk as he stumbles his way down the hall. Once Peter disappears around the bend in the hall, the Ravager captain sighs, tucks the wrench in his pocket, and walks back to his quarters.

 **OOOOO**

It's about three hours later when he sees Peter stagger past his door again. At least he thinks he sees him. He's not really paying attention but there's a small, shuffling, Peter-shaped _something_ that goes stumbling down the hall outside his door and it causes Yondu to stop what he's doing and look up.

He doesn't see anything, whatever stumbled by a second ago is gone now, but he can hear slow, uneven footsteps down the hall and he sighs heavily. Peter Quill has to be the most stubborn child in the entire galaxy and he's willing to lay money on it. Grumbling to himself, he pushes away from his desk and steps out into the hall.

"Quill," he calls, voice bouncing off the metal walls of the hallway. It's empty this time of night, the rest of the crew either asleep or entertaining themselves elsewhere, which means there's no reason for their youngest to be up and about at this time anyway. "You better have a good reason for bein' up an' stumbling around this time'a night, boy."

There's no answer and Yondu's not sure whether he should be annoyed or alarmed by that. The kid never misses a chance to shoot back with something snappy and irreverent and the fact that he's not doing it now is mildly concerning. It's possible he just didn't hear him, or he's ignoring him in which case he'll kick his ass.

He continues down the hall in the direction Peter went, actively tamping down the flickers of concern that are churning in his gut. He's nearly positive now that the Peter-shaped something was, indeed, Peter and the boy couldn't have gotten that far ahead of him to where he couldn't answer now. The kid was maybe ten to fifteen steps ahead of him, at most, so there's no way the Ravager captain could lose track of him that fast.

"Quill, ya got three seconds to answer me, boy," he calls out again, voice booming sharply against the walls as he continues walking. He's not worried, absolutely not, but he's getting annoyed at the lack of response and it's making him feel on edge. He rounds the corner of the hallway, mouth open to shout out another warning, when he sees Peter standing at the end of the hall.

The boy is standing in front of the same panel he was struggling with earlier that evening, once again trying to remove the last remaining bolt to loosen the panel. His attention is focused on the task at hand but his movements are slow and clumsy like he's not really in full control of his hands. There's a dazed, unfocused expression on his face and he's fumbling with the bolt in a kind of semi-conscious trance.

Yondu nearly yells at him again but stop himself with a heavy sigh and a shake of his head. Seriously, of all the pain in the ass kids in the galaxy, this one is his…

"Boy, what the hell are you doin' down here? I sent you to yer room hours ago."

Peter doesn't answer, attention still focused on the bolt as he fumbles, unsuccessfully, to loosen it.

Yondu resists the urge to growl. Not answering was one thing but now Peter is outright ignoring him and that will not stand. "I asked ya a question boy an' you better give me an answer in the next two seconds or I'm gonna put my boot up yer-"

He stops talking as he steps closer, eyes narrowing slightly. Peter is upright and functional but he's definitely not fully conscious. He's dazed and staring, more asleep than awake, and Yondu comes to the jarring realization that the kid is sleepwalking.

"Ah, hell," he mutters with a groan because seriously, this is the absolute last thing he ever thought he'd have to deal with on his ship. A Florian Flu infected Terran was one thing but a sleepwalking one was a different headache all together. He wants to curse the absurdity of it all but he settles instead with taking care of Peter first.

"Kid, what're you doin'?" he asks with barely contained impatience, dropping down to a crouch in front of Peter. The boy's eyes are completely blank, focused on the bolt he's still fussing with. It's like talking to a brick wall.

"Gotta finish my work," Peter mumbles back in response, words a little slurred and fused together as he speaks. His voice is dull and lifeless, almost robotic.

"Well, you don't gotta finish it tonight," Yondu tells him, contemplating reaching out and attempting to nudge Peter away from what he's doing. He stops himself though; he's witnessed someone sleepwalk once before and the person who thought it would be a good idea to shake them awake ended up with a broken nose for their efforts.

Peter shakes his head slowly. "Have'ta finish," he says again, voice monotonous and more than a little nasally. His eyes are bloodshot and glassy and there are bright blotches of color high up on his cheeks indicating the fever is still coursing through him. "Captain'll be mad if I don't."

That catches him off guard. Yondu frowns and ducks a little more to get into the boy's line of sight. "Who said he'd be mad?"

Peter shrugs one shoulder loosely and the small movement shakes his entire body. He sniffs and stares at the bolt. "Said he'd eat me if he caught me slackin' off," he mumbles again, purple-splotched hands still fumbling around with the bolt.

The Ravager captain sighs heavily and shakes his head again. "He ain't gonna eat ya, kid," he tells him, reaching out carefully and slowly pulling Peter's hands away from the panel. "How 'bout you let me worry about the captain and you get back to yer room an' go to bed? The work'll still be here tomorrow when ya get up."

Peter doesn't answer for a few seconds, gaze still glassy and unfocused. Finally he just nods in defeat and turns away from the panel, shoulders slumping heavily. He starts to step away but something, whether it's a combination of the fever or the fact that he's not exactly awake, causes him to stumbling directly into Yondu.

The captain reacts quickly, reaching out to steady the boy so he doesn't fall. His hands are on Peter's shoulders, keeping him upright, and he frowns when he feels the heat radiating through the boy's clothes. "Jeez, kid, yer really burnin' up," he mutters to himself more than the half-conscious child in front of him.

And then, as if the situation couldn't possible get any worse, Peter whimpers quietly and tips forward, burying his face against the side of Yondu's neck.

The Ravager freezes, honest to God freezes, because he has no idea how to deal with this. Peter is sick, he's whimpering, and he's miserable and he's unconsciously seeking comfort from someone who could easily fill an entire book with the names of all the people he's maimed and killed in the past. Yondu is reminded rather dramatically, in that moment, that the sick kid in front of him is just that, a kid. Peter is what, eight at the oldest? He puts up a hell of a fight in front of God and the galaxy but right now he's still just a sick little boy who feels miserable.

Yondu resists the urge to curse. He's not good with bedside manner and he's definitely not good with comfort and now he's trapped between both. Screw it; if anyone accuses him of going soft on the boy he'll just shoot them in the throat and be done with it.

He wraps one arm around Peter's back and turns his head slightly to get a better look at the boy slumped against his shoulder. Peter's eyes are closed and his skin is flushed and sweaty with fever. He looks absolutely terrible and the Ravager captain silently hopes he doesn't feel as bad as he looks.

With a soft sigh, he wraps his arm a bit more tightly around Peter and scoops him up in his arms, balancing him on one hip. He stands slowly, keeping one arm braced around the boy's back while Peter wraps his arms around his neck and keeps his face buried beneath his chin. "Come on, brat," Yondu mutters, adjusting Peter in his arms just a little and keeping a firm, secure grip on him so he doesn't fall. "Let's get ya back to yer room."

He turns back down the hall, away from the panel and the bolt and whatever task Peter was trying and failing to complete. Once again he's silently grateful for the absence of the rest of the crew; they would never let him live this down if they saw him carrying Peter down the hall to bed. He dwells on the thought for a second or so more before dismissing it outright; Peter is sick and feverish and delirious and he'll cut him some slack just this once and go easy on him.

Peter, for his part, is a heavy, hot weight against his side. The kid had gone through a growth spurt about a month ago and shot up a good two inches in the span of a couple of weeks. He was still gangly, all knees and elbows and sharp edges, and he was still working out the kinks with his newfound height. Yondu was working out similar kinks on his own, quickly realizing that Peter is much taller and heavier than he was the last time he had to carry him. But he's still just a kid, a sick kid at that, and he resigns himself to his fate. He keeps Peter balanced in his arms and carries him silently down the hall to his room.

He bypasses the lock on the door and steps inside, walking over to the bunk against the wall and gently depositing Peter into the center of the mattress. Peter is completely asleep by now and he curls in on himself just slightly when he's set down, sweat-damp hair clinging to his forehead in scattered clumps.

Yondu frowns and reaches out, sweeping the kid's hair away from his face and pausing just long enough to flatten his palm against his forehead. Peter is still far too warm to be healthy but it doesn't seem critical; if anything he feels a little cooler than he did earlier. Maybe it's a sign the Flu is finally working its way out of his system.

He reaches down and grabs one of his hands, examining the splotches along the back. Sure enough, the spots aren't bright purple and glaring like the were the day before when Peter first started showing signs of illness. The spots have faded a little now, no longer an alarming shade of fuschia but now more of a dark violet. They'll fade completely in another day or so once the last of the virus works itself out but until then Peter will be pretty gross and miserable for a little while longer.

Yondu considers leaving him there and just letting him sleep it off but figures that leaving the kid alone, sick and feverish as he still was, was simply asking for another round of trouble. So he sighs, grabs a chair, and gets comfortable, settling in to keep an eye on Peter for the rest of the night. Just to make sure he doesn't go off sleepwalking again. And to make sure his fever doesn't get worse. And also because Peter just looks disturbingly vulnerable right now and he can't bring himself to abandon him no matter how hard he tries. But no one needs to know that; he's a Ravager for God's sake, he has a reputation to uphold.

So he keeps that in mind as he pulls a knife out of his boot and begins absently sharpening it while he hums along to that ridiculous Blue Swede song Peter's so enamored with. The kid's musical tastes are strange; he makes a mental note to tell him that when he wakes up. He sharpens his knife, hums some weird Terran song, and keeps an eye on Peter while he sleeps.

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 **Thanks for reading guys! More to come soon! :D**


	3. Smurfs Are Communists

**Hello everyone! For all my American friends I hope you had a happy Independence Day! For all my Canadian friends I hope you had a happy Canada Day! (I know I'm a few days late, I'm sorry!) For all my other friends I hope you're having a wonderful week! Anyway, on to the story! This is just a silly chapter of Yondu dealing with an absurdly drunk Peter Quill. Hope you all enjoy! :D**

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This is all Kraglin's fault.

To be fair, Yondu probably shouldn't have dumped Peter into Kraglin's hands and told him to keep an eye on the kid while they were docked for the next few hours but he had a meeting with a trader and he didn't have the time or energy to come up with a better solution. Peter is plenty old enough to be left unsupervised (the kid's nearly seventeen, he doesn't need a babysitter) but he's also brash and full of bravado and tends to find himself in trouble more often than not. The kid knows his limits but he also likes to test them which usually ends up with him in the middle of a self-created shit storm.

So yeah, Peter could have been left alone and entrusted to his own devices but Yondu doesn't trust him as far as he can throw him half the time and he sure as hell doesn't trust him not to get himself in trouble while they're here.

The planet they're on right now, Tresit, is the back alley bar of this side of the galaxy. It's lawless, unruly, and violent and it's the kind of place that would just as soon chew you up and spit you out than attempt any kind of civility. It was a haven for thieves and thugs, bandits and brigands, and they were going to be stuck here for at least the next few hours while they sorted out this next job.

Yondu doesn't concern himself with the other members of his crew because he knows they can handle themselves and they're smart enough not to get taken by surprise while they're interacting with the locals. Peter? Not so much.

The kid's not stupid by any stretch of the imagination (on the contrary, he's way too damn smart for his own good sometimes) but he has a really bad habit of opening his mouth when he shouldn't, running it when he shouldn't, and not shutting up when he should. It's a bad habit, one he probably learned from someone on the ship or maybe he's just always had more mouth than sense, but it's usually the reason he finds himself in the predicaments he does.

So Yondu dumps him on Kraglin. Sure, it's not exactly fair to his first mate and he probably could have given him a little more warning, but he knows that if anyone can keep Peter from getting all his teeth knocked out of his head it will be Kraglin. He doesn't trust anyone with the task more and he doesn't need to explain himself when everyone departs. There's a silent exchange, a quick nod, and then Kraglin is snagging Peter by the arm and dragging him off in the direction of one of the nearest buildings.

That had been a few hours ago and by the time Yondu finishes his meeting with the trader and sets up the job, evening is already beginning to set. He figures they'll stay here for the night and depart the next day, allowing everyone a chance to enjoy some much needed shore leave. Being cooped up in the ship for weeks and months on end started to wear on everyone and spending a night off of it would do wonders for morale.

The Ravager captain finds the nearest tavern and walks inside. He needs a drink, something strong and more than a little illegal, and a woman. He hasn't been laid in months and he knows for a fact there will be plenty of places to change that here. If the rest of his crew has any sense at all, they're probably doing the same thing. There's no telling how long it will be before they dock at another planet like this and it's probably a good idea to go ahead and take care of any pressing needs before they ship out again.

He walks up to the bar and catches the bartender's attention. The bartender is tall and lumbering, towering above the patrons easily, but he seems quiet and content in what he's doing. Unlike the other occupants who are loud and rowdy, the bartender is completely silent and moves with an unusual grace that seems odd and out of place in a setting like this. He grabs a bottle with one long arm, fills a glass with something the color of amber, and passes it to Yondu.

The Ravager accepts the glass and flips the bartender a unit for his trouble. Good service is a rarity in a place like Tresit and he's glad to pay for it when it occurs. He knocks back the liquor with a dull grimace and sets the glass back on the bar, turning back to face the rest of the room.

There are a few tables set up all around the room with some kind of gambling going on around them. Other areas are darkened and by the noises and movements that can just be seen through the shadows, it's not hard to tell what's going on in the darkness. The bar is crowded and loud and bustling and it's only by sheer luck that Yondu catches a glimpse of Kraglin sitting at one of the tables toward the back.

His first mate is staring at a hand of cards in front of him, brows furrowed in concentration. There are six other players around him and whatever it is they're playing it must be high stakes because all of them are completely focused on the cards in their hand. Which is fine and all except there's no sign of Peter.

He frowns and scans the room again to make sure and yep, there's neither hide nor hair of Peter Quill anywhere in the room. Frowning again, he makes his way across the room to where his first mate is sitting, scanning the room again as he walks.

Kraglin glances up just briefly as he approaches, eyes meeting the other Ravager's. "Ey, Cap'n," he mutters, turning his attention back to the cards in his hand. Whatever game they're playing is intense and requires a lot of concentration apparently because Kraglin barely devotes more than a split second to addressing his leader.

"Where's Quill?" Yondu asks by way of greeting, still scanning the crowd again for any sign of their wayward Terran.

"Next room over," Kraglin mumbles, flipping a card onto the table and earning a series of hissed groans and curses for his efforts. "I been watchin' 'im, don't worry," he continues, eyes flickering over to an open door across the room which led into another part of the bar. "Kid's talkin' up a storm. Looks like he made a couple new friends too."

Yondu feels a muscle in his jaw twitch; he doesn't like the sound of that. Making 'new friends' in a place like this was a really terrible idea and Peter had never been the best judge of character. He and Peter both have scars from some of the 'new friends' the kid's made in the past. He grumbles under his breath and steps away from the table, leaving his first mate to his game and going in search of Peter.

He hears him before he sees him.

"So then I was like, 'who said anything about returning it?' If I smuggled it out then I get dibs, right?!" Peter's voice is loud and easy to identify and he's sitting at a table in the corner with at least seven other men who are all chuckling and revelling in whatever Peter just said. One thing was for sure: Peter certainly knew how to draw a crowd.

But that's the problem with a place like Tresit: drawing attention to yourself and making yourself the center of it was a surefire way to become a target. And Peter is too young, naive, or stupid (possibly all three) to realize this. Yondu sighs, rolls his eyes, and makes his way over to the babbling Terran.

When Peter sees him, his eyes light up and he grins brightly. "Yondu! Heeyyy!" he whisper-shouts, more than a little too loudly, and he makes some weird gesture with his hand while he talks. It's like a cross between a wave and a flail and he smacks his hand against the wall with a heavy thud. It sounds like it hurt and it probably did but Peter doesn't even seem to notice.

"You came! We thought you were gonna be gone forever. How'd the meeting go?" Peter's eyes widen suddenly and he shakes his head. "Oh shit, sorry. I wasn't supposed to talk about that. Secret meetings and all. Sorry, sorry, sorry."

The Ravager captain stares at him for a solid fifteen seconds. Between Peter's loud, slurring words and the scatter of glasses across the table in front of him, it doesn't take long for him to come to the conclusion that Peter is fantastically drunk. He suppresses a groan and settles with a glare instead.

"Boy, how much you had to drink?" he demands, leveling a solid glare at the clearly intoxicated Terran.

It's Peter's turn to frown and he thinks about the question and it's subsequent answer for several seconds. "Only like one or two," he says, waving one hand flippantly and sweeping a glass off the table at the same time. It shatters on the floor and he blinks at it. "Or like, six...I dunno, I lost count."

Yondu does growl this time and shakes his head in annoyance. "If ya lost count that means you've had too much, ya idiot."

Peter balks and does his best to look offended and indignant but it mostly comes off as just confused. "Hey, man, I'm fine. I'm good. I'm awesome," he says, even though all the words run together to form something along the lines of 'I'mfinegoowesome.'

"'Sides," Peter says with a breezy grin. "I can handle a few drinks."

Which is absolutely not true because Peter has never drank this much before nor has he ever been this drunk before. Sure, he's had a shot of something every once in awhile but never so much so quick. He's in for a long, bad night if the current state of things is any indication and Yondu would really prefer to keep it from getting worse if he can.

He rolls his eyes at the obviously drunk Terran and shakes his head. "Yer more tanked than you realize, brat," he grumbles, walking around the the table and snagging Peter by the arm. "Come on, yer goin' back to the ship."

Peter tries to shake him off ineffectively. It's an uncoordinated, flailing kind of motion that accomplishes absolutely nothing. "I'm fine, Yondu," he insists, words thick and slurred as he speaks. "I'm almost done here."

"Yer done when I say yer done, boy," the captain snaps back, physically hauling Peter out of the chair with one smooth yank. "And I say yer done now. Come on."

Peter bats at him again with same effect (or lack thereof) as before. "Alright, alright," he grumbles irritably, trying for a glare that just ends up looking like a squint. "So bossy. You're like the bossiest person ever. You should be a boss, you'd make a good boss. Bossy."

Yondu rolls his eyes again and tightens his grip on Peter's arm. "I'll keep that in mind. Now, come on."

He tugs him forward and Peter very nearly topples over the nearest chair. Yondu stops just long enough for him to right himself before pulling him forward again. "Use yer damn legs, idiot," he growls, looping one of Peter's arms around his shoulders and half-dragging, mostly carrying the drunken boy away from the table.

"'M tryin' to but I can't feel 'em," Peter counters, leaning heavily against the other man's side. He staggers along through the bar but it's clear Yondu is carrying 90% of his weight. If it were anyone else, literally _anyone_ else, he would have left him to drink himself to death at that table. But it's Peter and Yondu doesn't know _why_ but he's always had something of a soft spot for Peter. So he grumbles and bitches and practically carries the kid out of the bar to make sure he doesn't get himself into anymore trouble for the night.

He stops by Kraglin's table and kicks his first mate in the leg, partially to get his attention but also because dragging a completely tossed Peter Quill out of the bar was not how he thought this night was going to end and he needs someone to take his frustrations out on.

"I'm takin' the runt back to the ship," he tells him, indicating said runt with a shrug of his shoulder. Peter wobbles drunkenly with the movement. "Boy can't hold his liquor an' he's gonna be in for it for the rest'a the night. Make sure the crew gets back by dawn, we're leavin' the minute the port opens."

Kraglin scowls but whether it's from the choice of cards in his hands or the fact that he just got nailed in the shin by Yondu's boot is hard to tell. "Aye, cap'n," he says simply, turning to face the other Ravager and nodding toward Peter. "Havin' a good night, Quill?"

"I like your beard," Peter slurs in response.

"Atta boy," Kraglin praises with a quick grin.

Yondu growls under his breath and tries to readjust his grip on Peter and nearly drops him, catching him at the last second to prevent him from face planting on the floor. "Son of a...when did you get so damn heavy?" he growls as he wrangles a better grip on Peter.

"Thursday," Peter informs him simply and that makes no fucking sense but he's so matter-of-fact about the answer that Yondu briefly considers that maybe the change in weight was that recent and sudden. Then he remembers Peter is stupid drunk and likely has no idea what he's saying. So he sighs, rolls his eyes, and drags Peter out of the bar.

The ship isn't too far away but it takes every ounce of patience Yondu has to make it the short distance without throttling Peter. The boy is drunk enough to be staggering and stumbling and he's a heavy uncoordinated weight against Yondu's shoulder. He's also singing some ridiculous song that has no words or if it does have words those words don't make sense. It's annoying and grating and once again, if it were literally _anyone else_ in the universe he would have left them to rot in a ditch.

Peter stumbles again and Yondu jerks him up with a little more force than necessary and scowls. "I ain't carryin' you. You pass out an' I'm gonna leave you in an alley, boy," he warns even though he's practically carrying Peter already.

"Nah, you won't!" Peter declares with a bright, toothy grin that's far too triumphant for as drunk as he is. "You just like t' pretend you would but I know you wouldn't! I can seeee it."

"You can't see shit right now, Quill."

"Can too, Mr. Blue," Peter retorts with another drunken grin. "Cool rhyme. Imma call you Papa Smurf."

"I'm gonna drop you on yer face."

Peter just snickers.

By the time they reach the ship, Peter is still staggering and getting heavier by the second. Yondu just grumbles and drags him onboard, hauling him through the cargo hold and into the main engine room. Lucky for him, Peter's room isn't too much further and if he can just keep him moving-

"You know the Smurfs were communists, right?" Peter mumbles suddenly, words blurring together when he speaks.

"I don't even know what smurfs are, boy," the captain snips back, rounding the corner of the hall and making his way toward Peter's room.

"Lucky," Peter tells him with a heavy sigh. "They're creepy little bastards. And they're communists."

"Sounds terrifyin'," Yondu grumbles, shouldering his way through the door and staggering into the room. He makes it the last three steps to the edge of Peter's bed before literally dumping him on the mattress.

"They were," Peter insists, still attempting to make an emphatic, albeit incredibly drunk, argument. "They were all dudes too with like one chick Smurf in the middle of all of 'em and, like, no one ever thought that was weird. Just a bunch blue creeps livin' together in a village made'a mushrooms. Also, they all wore hats. Whyy…?"

"Couldn't tell ya, runt," the Ravager captain mutters, stepping out of the room for a second to grab a bucket from across the hall. He's been this level of drunk before and knows the night usually ends up in vomit and regret so he's attempting to take proactive steps in an effort to make sure Peter doesn't decide to get sick and redecorate his room.

He walks back to the room and is greeted with the sight of Peter laying face down on the ground. He resists the urge to roll his eyes again and walks over to the drunk lump on the floor, nudging him sharply with the toe of his boot. "Get off the floor, ya idiot."

"Can't," Peter mumbles into the crook of his arm where his face is hidden. "Ship's movin'. Knocked me off the bed."

"Ship ain't movin', Quill."

"Is too," Peter argues weakly. "You jus' can't feel it."

Yondu does roll his eyes this time. "Fine, ship's movin'. Now get off the floor; yer drunk an' sleepin' on the floor ain't gonna help."

"Floor sleep is great," Peter argues hazily. He reaches out blindly and grabs Yondu's boot, hanging on for dear life. "Don't move," he mumbles, words heavy and thick with effort. "You're foot's the only thing keeping me from floatin' off into space."

Yondu briefly considers moving his foot and kicking Peter in the shoulder but he doesn't and he doesn't know why and it pisses him off. "God yer worthless," he grumbles to the sprawled Terran on the floor but he doesn't move his foot. "Don't know why I bother puttin' up with yer sorry hide."

"Cuz I was skinny and good for thievin'," Peter mumbles back, fingers still clutching the boot tightly.

"Well ya ain't skinny anymore, that's for damn sure," the Ravager retorts, grabbing a chair without moving his foot and sinking down into it. He can't leave, not when there's a very definite possibility that Peter will choke to death on his own vomit when he inevitably throws up. And the kid is clinging to his boot like it's literally the only thing keeping him tethered to this plane of reality and it seems just a little too heartless to pull his foot away and walk off. "Yer a large scale pain in my ass, brat."

"You like me an' you know it," Peter shoots back, far too cheeky for his own good.

"Shut up, Quill," Yondu growls but he makes an effort to sit still and let Peter continue to cling to his foot like a lifeline.

* * *

 **Thanks so much for reading guys! Also, the Smurfs are not Communists. Probably.**


	4. Distraction

**Hello everyone! Hope you're doing well! This chapter was literally just an excuse for me to beat on Peter for a little while (because I'm a bit of a sadist). Hope you all enjoy it! :D**

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"This has to be at least an eight."

There's a scoff from across the room. "Hell no. This is a hard five, easy. That time we was pinned down on Umulsa? _That_ was an eight."

"I think you and I are judging this on a completely different scale."

"We've had worse and ya know it."

"Yeah?" Peter retorts blandly, unimpressed with the remark. "Well at least when we were on Umulsa I didn't have a bullet in my leg."

"We were stuck on a disintegratin' planet for two hours while the core liquified," Yondu counters with a glare. "Umulsa was worse."

Peter sighs and shakes his head. "Whatever, man. All I'm saying is that if I had known I was gonna get shot today I would've just stayed on the ship."

To say that today had not gone according to plan would have been an incredibly polite understatement. Sure, their line of work came with its fair share of risks and dangers, that was unavoidable, but there was a difference between knowing something was dangerous and walking face first into it. That was exactly what had happened today and their simple in-and-out job had turned into hell in a handbasket before any of them knew what was happening. It should have been a quick job with a helluva lot of payout but the universe had other plans.

Getting captured was surprising for a number of reasons, not the first of which was that the planet they were on was supposed to be abandoned and devoid of anything organic. It was a desert planet, dry and arid through and through, and to the best of galactic knowledge it hadn't been habitable for nearly a century. Which was great for them because it meant no one would step in to stop them when they landed planetside and began scouring the desert wasteland for something that might earn a few units.

Prior to its desertion, the planet had been rich supplier of precious metals and materials that could only be found in one place in the universe. It had been an industrial capital and had carved itself a nice little corner in a market the galaxy didn't know it needed before. That was until the planet dried up and the population fled and left it to degrade and languish as little more than a desert moon floating through the vast cosmos.

So yeah, it was a bit unexpected when their landing party suddenly found themselves involved in a firefight in the middle of an abandoned city as they were scrounging for salvageable material. The ambush had been quick and violent, a brutal attack that left three of their men dead within a few seconds of the first shot. The others dove for cover in the dusty and crumbling remnants of the surrounding buildings but the element of surprise had put them at a marked disadvantage and their remaining members were not able to escape unscathed.

There were shouts and curses all around them and somewhere in the melee Peter took a bullet through the leg. Like a real, honest to God, made-of-metal bullet. The pain had been blinding and sudden and it knocked him off his feet before he even knew what happened. He landed hard on his back, stifling a pained grunt and dragging himself behind a crumbling wall to avoid another shot that zipped over his head. They were clearly outgunned and outmatched and there was a high likelihood that they would all be killed here before the day was out. He had gripped his weapon, taken a deep breath, and prepared to go out in a blaze of glory when it came to it.

Then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the shooting stopped and the streets went quiet. From the dusty shadows of the crumbling building, several dozen heavily armed figures emerged. They were wrapped from head to toe in thick beige cloth that helped them blend in with the dust-colored city around them and they were all holding very large, very deadly guns. It was clear they had the advantage in this situation and that one wrong move would inevitably result in being shot in the street.

They moved through the remnants of the city quickly and rounded up the surviving members of the Ravager's party, divesting them of their weapons in the process. One of them kicked Peter's gun out of his hand and jerked him up off the ground roughly, ignoring the hiss of pain that accompanied the movement. He shoved Peter in with the rest of the group and they were marched out of the city toward a large, stone structure about two miles away.

The structure turned out to be what was left of a once large prison compound. It was a huge building divided into four sections, each one filled with iron-barred cells. There were no laser grids or power lock cells, just thick concrete walls and irons bars. It was looming and foreboding but surprisingly primitive for a planet like this. Primitive or not though, it was more than capable of holding a contingent of Ravager prisoners for the unforeseeable future.

It was clear their captors were more than a little unhappy with having a group of trespassers on their planet. They were suspicious and wary and likely had every intention of leaving them to rot in the prison for the rest of their lives. Or they could decide to just kill them all and be done with it. Neither option was great but one posed a more immediate threat than the other.

Whatever the case, they had been locked up going on four hours now. Their party had been separated out all over the prison, probably in an effort to prevent any kind of collaboration for escape. That much was understandable at least; Ravagers were nothing if not resourceful and it would take a whole lot more than a centuries-old prison to keep them in one place for long. Still, it would be difficult to organize any kind of escape plan with half of their members injured and the other half weaponless. Save a monumental stroke of luck, it looked like they were stuck here for the time being.

Peter sighs and slumps against the wall of his cell heavily. His injured leg is stretched out in front of him, the sleeves of his jacket knotted tightly over the still bleeding wound. The bullet is still in there, he can feel it digging deeply into the muscle everytime he moves his leg. Honestly he thinks he's more pissed about the fact that it's a real bullet more than anything else. Laser blast, sure; that would have at least cauterized the wound. But no, there's a bullet stuck in his leg and he's more offended by that than almost anything else.

The hike over here had not done him any favors either. He could barely walk but he knew that if he fell behind or stumbled they'd probably just shoot him in the head to save time and effort. The only reason he was able to remain upright the whole time was because Horuz kept one hand fisted in the back of his jacket during the march over, providing some level of support and stability. Without his assistance, Peter is pretty sure he wouldn't have made it all the way to the prison.

The help didn't stem the bleeding though and Peter left a trail of dark blood splatters all the way from the ruined city to the prison. By the time they made it to the prison and he was tossed in a cell, he was dizzy with pain and blood loss. It's only gotten worse since they've been here and even though he's managed to staunch some of the bleeding, the wound is still oozing lazily and staining the leg of his pants a dark, ugly red. There's a thick layer of sweat breaking out across the back of his neck and soaking through his shirt and he suppresses a shiver in spite of the heat.

Yondu was in the cell across the room from him, slowly and silently attempting to pick the lock on the door. Judging by the lack of progress and the increased level of cursing, Peter guesses it's not going very well.

"How's the lock comin'?" he calls out, voice echoing just a little in the emptiness of the room. They're the only two in here, the rest of their group scattered throughout the rest of the building. Their captors had left them to sit and rot in their cells, apparently trusting in their prison's defenses well enough to not keep a constant eye on them. Occasionally a guard would pass by their block to make sure they were still there but other than a quick pass through, they didn't stay very long. That left them with a lot of free time and a lot of opportunity to pick the lock on their cells and break out. At least in theory.

Yondu scowls as the piece of metal he's been using to work at the lock on his cell bends, rendering itself useless. "It's not," he grumbles irritably. "These bastards may not be high tech but their locks are a pain in the ass. I don't have anythin' thin enough to get past the first set of tumblers."

"That sucks," Peter mumbles, letting his head drop back against the wall behind him. He's tired, he's not sure whether it's from blood loss or just the situation that they're in, but staying awake has become an almost constant battle for the past half hour.

The Ravager captain frowns at the heaviness of his voice and looks up from what he's doing. "How's yer leg?"

"Bleeding," Peter replies with a slight shrug. It hasn't stopped bleeding since he got shot, it's just slowed to a crawl rather than an all out gush. It doesn't change the fact that there's a reddish puddle of bloody mud beneath his leg and streaks of dried and fresh blood across the front of his pants. If the dizziness and cold chills are anything to go on, he's guessing he's lost a rather substantial amount of blood by now.

Yondu mutters some kind of curse under his breath and goes back to tinkering with the lock. "Well, keep pressure on it. Last thing I need is for you to up an' die in that cell before I can get us outta here."

"Aye, aye cap'n," Peter mumbles back, tightening the knot over the wound a little more. It hurts like hell but he figures it's better than bleeding to death.

He sighs and slumps back again; their hopes for a quick escape were getting smaller by the second. It was bad enough that their weapons had been confiscated but Yondu's arrow, which would have solved literally all of their problems from the beginning, had been rendered useless by the magnetic and electrical components of the planet's atmosphere. Some combination of the two prevented the connection between the arrow and its wielder and turned it into little more than a very fancy sharp stick. Not that it would do them much good now, it had been taken along with everything else, but still it might have come in handy with the whole lock-picking thing.

"'Ey!" a voice shouts and something small and hard bounces off his forehead. It's a rock, a small, rough one at that, and it lands on his uninjured leg. Peter startles a little and reaches up, rubbing the spot where it hit. He frowns weakly and glares at Yondu. "What was that for?"

"Stay awake, Quill," the captain tells him seriously, crimson eyes narrowed slightly. "You know as well as I do what happens when ya start dozin' off from blood loss."

Peter frowns, mostly because he didn't realize he'd even closed his eyes let alone lost consciousness for a few seconds. He rubs his forehead again, the movement clumsy and uncoordinated. "Well don't throw rocks, man. Tha's rude."

Yondu points one blue finger at him in response. "Stay awake an' I won't throw rocks at ya."

Peter nods once and makes a concentrated effort to sit up a bit straighter. His head swims for a moment and clenches one fist tightly at his side. They need to find a way out of here or he stands a really good chance of bleeding to death in this cell.

He stares at the lock on his cell for a second and changes tactics. "What about the distress signal? I know Aberra sent out a call before he got shot."

Yondu sighs and shakes his head. "I hate to break it to ya, kid, but if anyone got that signal they'd be here by now. Now the rest'a the crew might start gettin' suspicious once they realize they haven't heard from us for awhile but that might take a couple more hours to a couple more days before that happens. Til' then, we're on our own."

Peter frowns again and turns his attention back to the lock on the cell, staring at the clunky metal pieces and trying to analyze their components. The locks are primitive, thick metal bases with equally thick shackles. The locking mechanism was far too small for anything they had available to them and without something to bypass the cylinders there would be no way to get them unlocked. Since there wasn't anything at their disposal they could use to blast it off the cell door, the next best thing would be a key. And Peter is relatively certain he knows where to find one.

"What if I could get you a key?" he asks suddenly, eyes still locked on the outline of the lock.

Yondu scoffs and shakes his head again. "And how d'ya plan to do that, boy? Make one outta clay?"

Peter glares weakly at the other Ravager. "Not my question. If I could get you a key could you get us out of here?"

The Ravager Captain levels him with a look. "Boy, if you could get me a key we woulda been outta here hours ago." He thinks about the question a bit more and frowns. "Why? What're you planning?"

"I have an idea," Peter tells him simply.

"Yer ideas are terrible, Quill, we've established this," Yondu retorts with a glare of his own.

Peter rolls his eyes and offers a watery grin. "At least I'm consistent, right?"

"Yeah, yer ideas are consistently terrible."

"You let me worry about my terrible idea and just make sure you can get us out of here."

The comment earns him another frown from his blue-skinned captain. "The hell're you plannin' boy?"

Peter doesn't have a chance to answer as there's a shuffle of movement in the corridor outside and a few seconds later one of the armed guards from before appears in the doorway. He looks into the room like he's making note that there are indeed still two prisoners in here and he's about to walk away again when Peter calls out to him.

"Hey man, you think you could get me something for my leg?" Peter asks, motioning toward the injured, bloody limb in indication. "I'm bleeding like a sieve over here and my jacket's soaked through."

The man looks at him blankly for several seconds, staring at him like he's trying to determine if he's serious or not.

Peter rolls his eyes slightly. "Dude, come on, I'm asking for a bandage, not a weapon." The guard doesn't appear persuaded, continuing to eye him warily through the bars. Peter flips his hands up in exasperation and slumps back against the wall. "Seriously? What do you think I'm planning to do? I have a bum leg and you have a gun; you really think I'm gonna try something?"

The guard is silent for a second or so more before finally relenting and digging out a long strip of cloth from one of his pockets. The ring of keys at his belt jingles softly as he moves and Peter is conscious not to look at them for fear of giving away his plan. The guard steps up to the outside of the cell and drops it just on the other side to where Peter will have to crawl to get it.

Peter shakes his head and grumbles under his breath. "Dick," he mutters, pulling himself up slowly and dragging himself toward the strip of cloth. It's a slow, painful process and he has to concentrate really hard not to pass out as he makes his way across the cell. The guard watches him carefully, wary of any sudden movements or tricks, but Peter keeps his head down to keep himself as inconspicuous as possible. He knows Yondu is watching and he really only has one shot to pull this off; otherwise they'll all be dead in a matter of seconds.

He grabs the strip of cloth and slumps against the bars of the cell, breathless and shaky. The short distance between the wall and the bars was enough to leave him winded and his leg is throbbing mercilessly by the time he stops. He tries to ignore the long, ugly smear of blood that streaks its way across the floor of his cell from where he dragged himself over. It's a lot and it's fresh which means the wound has started bleeding all over again. Great.

He takes a deep breath and braces himself for what's about to happen because once it starts there's really no way to stop it. The guard is close, just on the other side of the bars, and Peter makes his move.

He reaches through the bars suddenly and slams his fist in the man's knee, knocking his leg out from under him and sending him staggering to the ground. Just as he lands, Peter is reaching through the bars again and looping the strip of cloth around his throat and tying it tightly to the bars in a makeshift noose. It's not tight enough to kill him, not yet at least, but it will be extremely difficult for him to break free while he's struggling to breathe.

Peter reaches through bars again and unhooks the the man's belt, the jingle of keys clattering to the floor loudly. The guard's gun goes off as he struggles against the cloth around his neck, peppering the ceiling with bullets and bullet holes. It's sure to get the other guard's attention and Peter knows they don't have much time left.

He retrieves the keys and throws them across the room toward Yondu's cell, the sound of metal crashing against stone filling the room. There are shouts coming from down the hall and loud, thundering footsteps and suddenly the room is filled with armed guards.

They see their trapped companion and the bleeding Terran holding him hostage and immediately go on the offensive. The cell door is ripped open and they descend on him like a pack of wolves, beating him mercilessly with the butts of their gun. Peter curls in on himself as much as he can but he's grinning like a lunatic through blood-stained teeth. Everything was going according to plan…

Someone kicks him in his wounded leg and the pain is nearly enough to make him black out. His vision goes simultaneous black and white around the edges and everything fades out for a moment. It all comes back with sudden, painful vengeance when a large, rough hand clamps around his throat and slams him against the wall with enough force to make his vision go black again momentarily.

"So much for your escape plan," the guard with his hand around Peter throat snarls, slamming his head against the wall again.

Peter is pretty sure he blacks out again for a second but when he comes to he's laughing. It's a mildly hysterical sound but he doesn't care. "Who said anything about me trying to escape?" he asks to no one in particular, his words slurred and heavy as he speaks. He has blood in his mouth and he spits it out with a grin. "I'm just the distraction."

There's a blast behind them and the hand gripping his throat suddenly goes slack as the owner of said hand gets shot in the back of the head. The guard slumps and Peter slumps with him and there's a terrible blur of noise and confusion going on inside the cell above him. The blow to the head combined with blood loss is making him more than a little fuzzy right now and for a second all he can do is stare up at the ceiling.

Suddenly there's something blue and angry in his face and a hand slapping his cheek roughly. "Come on, boy, get up! We gotta go!"

Peter wants to protest that he can't get up, there's a dead guard on top of him and also there's still a bullet in his leg, but the weight is removed suddenly and gravity gets weird for a second as he's jerked up off the ground.

He gasps in pain and staggers, gripping onto Yondu's shoulder like a lifeline to keep from falling over. The scene in the cell is complete carnage, dead and dying guards scattered all over the ground, and Peter is just ever so slightly horrified at how quickly all of that occurred.

Yondu reaches down and grabs one of the guards guns, shoving into Peter's hand. "Yer gonna need this," he tells him simply, shouldering two more weapons as he speaks.

Peter holds the gun in weak, boneless fingers and he holds onto Yondu and he wobbles and nearly falls over again. He's bleeding and dizzy and his head just got slammed against a brick wall and overall he's just not having a great time. "Where're we goin'?" he asks and the words all tumble together in a weird combination of syllables that doesn't make a lot of sense.

"Get the others an' get outta here," the captain tells him, tightening his grip on the swaying Terran beside him. "Which is gonna be a helluva lot harder to do if ya can't stay upright, Quill," he grumbles and the words seem harsh but they're layered in concern and desperation.

"Can't stand," Peter mumbles drunkenly and he can feel blood trickling through his hair and down the back of his neck. "Definitely can't run…"

The Ravager captain growls in frustration and sighs. "Well I ain't leavin' yer sorry ass behind so I guess I'm just gonna have'ta carry you."

Peter opens his mouth to protest but the words never have a chance to come out as he's roughly maneuvered and then draped gracelessly over Yondu's shoulder like a sack of sand. "Watch my back and make sure we're don't get shot from behind, boy," the captain orders and he straightens with Peter on his shoulder.

"And don't you dare throw up on me or I'll make ya sleep in the supply closet for a month." And with that final cheery warning, he takes off down the hall with a gun in one hand and Peter draped over his shoulder.

The prison is actually much smaller than it seems from the outside and it only takes a few seconds to get from one cell block to the other. Or maybe it takes longer than that and Peter's sense of time is skewed thanks to his head being slammed against a wall; either way they're suddenly across the prison and making their way to the next section of cells.

The remaining guards have turned out in droves and it seems like they're everywhere at once but miraculously none of their bullets meet their mark. Peter manages to take out a couple from his awkward position but Yondu takes out easily twice as many in the same amount of time. Normally Peter would be a little bitter about the score but he's trying really hard not to get shot again or throw up so he has other things on his mind.

They reach the next block of cells and suddenly their numbers double. Peter isn't really sure when that happened exactly; there's a pretty significant time lapse between one moment and the next (thanks blood loss) but all at once the other Ravagers are released and gathered together in a tight clump in the corridor. Weapons are gathered from the fallen guards and they form ranks and move on to the next wing of the prison.

Peter is pretty sure he blacks out again because the next thing he knows they're all barricaded in one large room of the prison, shouts and curses filling the room all around them. He's slumped up against a wall, bloody and dirty and all around miserable. Someone has taken his gun and he's mildly offended at first before he realizes he wouldn't be able to shoot properly right now anyway and it's probably for the best.

Someone pats him on the shoulder and he rolls his head to one side to see Yondu crouched beside him. "You still with me, boy?" he asks and if Peter didn't know any better he'd say the captain looked relieved. He's pretty sure he has a concussion though so he blames it on that.

"Yup," he hears himself mutter instead and yeah, he kinda feels like he wants to die but he's definitely not dead yet.

"Good, keep it that way," Yondu tells him, reaching out and patting his hand against the center of Peter's chest. "We're gettin' outta here real soon, just gotta keep our new friends from gettin' through that door before the ship gets here and…"

Peter tries to pay attention, he really does, but his level of consciousness is shifty at best at the moment and loses track of everything for a few minutes after that. He jolts awake a few moments (hours? How long was it?) later to the sound gunfire and shouting and he vaguely wonders if they're all about to get killed.

Someone grabs him, someone blue, and he's picked up again and lifted off the ground. He's not sure what's happening anymore, only that he's being carried somewhere else, maybe somewhere not as loud. He sighs, closes his eyes, and lets the world fade away again.

 **OOOOO**

"'Ey," a loud, sharp voice cuts through his subconscious like a whipcrack. "You gonna sleep all day or are you gonna get off yer lazy ass an' get back to work?"

Peter frowns and opens his eyes, blinking in confusion up at the ceiling. He fully expected to see the bars of the cell or the prison ceiling or something else indicating he was still in the cell. Actually, he was fully expecting to be dead. But nope, neither of those things appeared to be true at the moment and instead he was in the medical wing of the Ravager ship.

He tips his head over to the side and sees Yondu slouched in a chair beside the bed, arms crossed over his chest and crooked smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. "'Bout time you woke up. I was about to lose my bet."

"The hell…?" Peter hears himself mutter, voice croaky and a little thin. "How'd we get back here?"

"I carried you," the Ravager captain replies simply, leaning back in the chair. "The cavalry arrived just about the time ya passed out again so I scooped ya up an' hauled yer lazy carcass back to the ship."

He nods toward a metal tray next to the bed and Peter just now realizes there's a bloody bullet in the middle of it. "Pulled the bullet outta yer leg and got ya patched up. You've been laid up in here for a few hours now. Few'a the boys had a bet goin' about how long you'd be out. Looks like they owe me thirty units."

Peter smirks faintly and shakes his head. It hurts and it makes the whole room feel like it's wobbling and he's infinitely grateful that he's laying down right now. He glances down at the blankets covering his lower body and can feel the tight press of bandages across his leg. The wound still hurts, a deep, throbbing ache that pierces all the way to the bone, but it's not as intense as it was before. He chalks it up to being pumped full of painkillers and a cocktail of other drugs he doesn't know the name of.

"How long am I stuck here?" he asks finally, trying to sit up a bit and failing. He's still dizzy and woozy from the combination of head injury and blood loss so maybe moving wasn't such a great idea just yet.

"Couple days, at least," Yondu tells him with a vague, flippant wave of his hand. "Got the bullet out but it tore up a buncha muscle tissue that needs to heal; didn't hit the bone though. Also you bled like a stuck pig an' got that hard head'a yers racked against a wall so it's prob'ly best for you to stay in here for another day or two."

He fixes Peter with a loose glare. "But don't think I'm goin' soft on ya, boy. The second you get outta this bed it's right back to work, ya understand me?"

Peter smirks a little. "Aye, aye, cap'n."

"Good," Yondu grumbles, slumping back against the chair again. He looks like he has something else to say but weighs whether he should actually say it or not. "And Quill?"

Peter blinks at him.

"By gettin' those keys ya saved our asses back there, boy," the captain tells him, leveling his crimson eyes on the bed bound Terran. "And don't think for one second that we ain't grateful for that but the next time you decide to make yerself the distraction and nearly get yerself killed in the process I'm gonna kick yer ass myself, understand?"

Peter nods once in understanding, slumping back against the mattress a bit more.

"Good," Yondu says again with a small, satisfied nod. "I respect the balls ya got, kid, but that don't mean I enjoy watchin' ya get hurt. I raised you since you was a pup so you best believe that if anyone's got a right to kick yer ass it'll be me an' no one else. Got it?"

"Got it," Peter replies with a small smile.

That earns him another small nod and the captain crosses his arms back over his chest. "Now go to sleep. The longer ya stay awake the longer it'll take that leg to heal an' I ain't keepin' ya on this ship if you ain't workin'."

Peter smirks, nods once, and closes his eyes.

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 **Thanks for reading guys! More to come soon!**


	5. It's Okay

**Raise your hand if you still feel personally victimized by Marvel and everything was the ending of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2! Same, guys, same. I'm still not over it, will probably never be over it, but I'll continue to cope through fan fiction because it's much healthier than drinking. Probably. Anyway, obvious spoilers for the ending of the movie so if you haven't seen it yet please turn away now or be prepared to cry.**

 **P.S. Aya is a character of my own design and I love her. I have a head canon that she was the one who gave Yondu his little glass frog thing for the dash. Prepare for tragedy!**

 **Hope you all like it!**

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He's not coming back from this. He knows it before he ever leaves the cell, before they ever reach Ego's planet. There's a calm kind of acceptance that settles over him as they board the ship and prepare to make the jump; he's always known he was destined for a bad end, ever since he was a child. He's accepted that as a fact, hard and undeniable, and there have been many times in his life where he's even embraced the idea of meeting death in a blaze of blood and glory.

There's a brief moment when he's sitting imprisoned on his own ship that he thinks this is it and he nearly laughs. It seems oddly and ironically fitting that he should die at the hands of his own crew. It stings a bit, he won't deny that, but he he's not exactly surprised. Nor does he have it in him to fight it anymore. He's tired and he's resigned and oddly the idea of a violent, gruesome death seems more appealing than his continued existence. He doesn't fight it and he doesn't try to change his fate. It's not hard to wish for death when you have nothing to live for.

Except he does have something to live for now, at least for a little while longer. It's that scrappy, stubborn, pain in the ass Terran he's been bringing up since he was a kid. He's in danger and he probably doesn't even realize it and God, if that hasn't been the summary of Peter Quill's life up until this point he has no idea what it would be.

The other Guardian, Rocket, tells him that Peter and the rest of his crew are shacked up on Ego's planet and he drops the name casually like it doesn't belong to one of the deadliest and most dangerous beings in the universe. Ego found Peter and Peter is now with him on his planet and if Yondu ever needed any kind of motivation to get him up and fighting again, at least for a little while longer, it was that.

Because Ego has Peter and he won't let him go until he kills him and Yondu refuses to let that happen.

So he drags himself out of his resigned acceptance in the cell and tells the little tree creature, Groot, where to look for his fin. If they're going to break out of here he'll need it and he knows it'll come in handy when it comes to getting Peter away from Ego. He doesn't expect the Celestial to let Peter go without a fight and he's more than happy to bring it to him if it keeps him away from Peter.

He doesn't expect Kraglin's help but he accepts it without a word when it's offered. Part of him wants to be angry but he can't bring himself to it. In an odd way he understands his first mate's frustration and the final step to speaking his mind about the captain's supposed favoritism toward Peter.

He'd denied it for so long, threatened and warned and snapped at anyone who even suggested that he had a soft spot for the kid. He can't deny it now though, not knowing that Peter's life is on the line and time is a factor in keeping him alive. Peter is the son he never had and he'll be damned if someone is going to take that away from him. Peter is the only thing he's ever done sort of right in his long, miserable life and if it means taking on a Celestial to keep him safe, he'll do it.

It seems oddly fitting, then, that Peter's music should be blasting over the speakers as he lays waste to the ship. He's not selective as his arrow zips through the ship, piercing through flesh and bone and metal; there's nothing worth saving here and he's happy to let the ship burn to ashes in his wake. He leaves it to do just that as he and the other two Guardians make their way to the nearest escape craft, meeting Kraglin at the door as the remains of the ship falls to ruin behind them.

There's an odd sense of finality as he watches what was left of his ship burn and break apart as they pull away into empty space. It's in that moment that he accepts that he likely won't survive this trip, that he'll meet an end very similar to that of his ship: burning and wasted somewhere in the cosmos. He thinks it should alarm him but it doesn't; he surprisingly at ease with the idea. Because even if it kills him, he's not letting Ego have Peter.

He's known what kind of monster Ego is for years now, longer than he'd like if he were honest with himself. He has a complicated history with the Celestial, one filled with trade agreements and shady transactions. In the beginning it was easy to convince himself that he was doing the right thing, that he was locating long-lost children and returning them to their desperate father. Ravagers don't deal in kids, that was one of their strongest and most unshakeable core values, but in the beginning he didn't view it as 'dealing' so much as it was 'delivering.'

It didn't concern him that Ego had systematically fucked his way across the galaxy, leaving a string of progeny in his wake. A paycheck was a paycheck and the children were being returned to their father so no harm, no foul, right? He didn't ask questions, didn't need answers, and as long as Ego paid him for his services he would continue to the collect the missing children and deliver them to their wayward father.

His lack of concern/interest changed with one delivery though, right there toward the end. Her name was Aya and she was a little Parsa girl Ego had hired him to pick up. She was all alone, living on the streets and sleeping in an alley when they found her, and she couldn't have been more than about five. She was scared at first, the little ones always were, but she took Yondu's hand carefully and allowed him to lead her onto the ship.

She was a bright, inquisitive child and she asked more questions than she had the attention span for. She asked him about her father, about what he was like, and honestly Yondu had no answers for her because he didn't know that much about Ego himself. Their conversations were always short and to the point, a child's name and their last known location, and that was it. So no, he didn't have any viable information for the curious little girl on his ship but she was watching him with her big, bright brown eyes and he couldn't give her nothing so he just told her that her father was a good man and she would like him.

He made the drop off himself. Usually he just sent the kids with one of the other Ravagers or arranged for a drop off location with Ego but he didn't do that with Aya. He didn't know why but for some reason he felt like he needed to be the one to personally deliver her to her father. So they reached the planet and docked their ship and he took Aya's tiny hand in his and walked her off the ship and onto Ego's planet.

Ego was waiting for them, smiling broadly and opening his arms to the tiny girl being escorted by the Ravager captain. She ran to him, grinning from ear-to-ear, and threw herself into his arms with no hesitation. It should have been a heart-warming reunion (if you're into that kind of thing) but for some reason it set Yondu on edge. He couldn't explain what it was right away, why the atmosphere of Ego's planet just felt so _off_ , but he ignored it because that wasn't something he was paid to do. Deliver the kid and leave, that's what his job entailed. But he couldn't leave until he said goodbye to Aya; it was important for some reason even if he wasn't sure what that reason was at the time.

She grinned at him and hugged him and yeah, it was a little weird because he's a Ravager and Ravagers don't do hugs, but he wrapped one arm around her tiny body and hugged her back. Before she turned to go back to Ego, she dug into her pocket and handed him a small trinket. It was a little creature, glass and metal with big, shiny eyes, and it bore an eerie resemblance to Aya herself. She wanted him to keep it as a symbol of her thanks, a very small token of appreciation. He didn't really understand it but he took it with a small nod and a crooked smile and tucked it in his pocket.

It wasn't until a few days later that he realized why Ego's planet bothered him so much, why leaving Aya there with him felt like such a bad idea. There were no other children on the planet and there should have been dozens. He'd been collecting kids for Ego for years now and there should have been tons of the little ankle-biters running around and ready to greet their new sibling. But he didn't see any of them when they landed, none of them came out to meet them, and it didn't look like any other children had ever been on the planet, let alone lived there.

It bothered him no end, so much so that he tried checking on Aya a few times after that. There was no trace of her, it was like she had vanished into thin air. The only evidence she'd ever even existed sat on his console as a tiny metal and glass figurine. He didn't know what happened to her but he couldn't shake the feeling that it was something terrible.

Three weeks later he got the work order to retrieve another child, this one from Terra, and deliver him to Ego. Yondu took the order and the money and had absolutely no intention of delivering another child to Ego. He wasn't sure what happened to the other kids he left there but he refused to be a part of it anymore. Ego was doing something to his children, he was sure of it, and he wasn't going to let it happen again.

So he kept Peter and raised him to be a Ravager and kept him as far away from Ego as he possibly could. He'd failed Aya and led her like a lamb to slaughter along with countless others and he swore it would never happen again. He'd kept that promise for years now, decades even, and now it was all crashing down around him. Because Ego has Peter and it seems like some kind of cruel cosmic joke that even after all these years he's still looming like a specter on the outskirts of the galaxy. He's going to kill Ego and get Peter back if it's the last thing he does.

The planet is on the verge of a full meltdown by the time they reach it. It's writhing and sentient and crackling with electricity as it literally pushes against the barriers of its physical space. There's not much time before the planet goes full supernova with all of them in its blast radius.

It's not hard to find Peter and the other Guardians and they come tumbling into the ship in a breathless frenzy as the planet roils beneath them. Peter blinks in surprise and confusion when he sees him, eyes widen and incredulous. "Yondu?!" he blurts because the Ravager captain is probably the last person he expected to see this side of the galaxy.

The reunion is short-lived though because Ego and, by proxy, the entire planet, is actively trying to kill them and there will be time for small talk later. Maybe. Probably not. Right now they need to reach the core and destroy it or else it'll be all over but the crying.

Things go from bad to catastrophic almost immediately. They're fighting a losing battle on all sides, attacked above and below and everywhere in between. The brief respite Mantis had given them was broken when she was knocked unconscious by a piece of rock and then Ego was charging against them at full force. The planet was alive, crumbling and swallowing them at every turn, and any hope of survival was getting smaller by the second.

Ego appears from the smoke and flames like a gruesome phoenix, a manic look in his eye as he tries to regain control of the situation. He's never had one of his children fight back like this before and it's absolutely infuriating. He's determined to make Peter see though, to make him realize this is the only way and if he won't accept it he'll just have to kill him like he did all his siblings.

There's a flash of light, blinding and whip-quick, and a spear of energy pierces Peter from behind. He staggers, falls to his knees, and Ego if there.

Yondu hears himself make some kind of indignant, outraged noise at the sight of Peter being skewered like a fish and he would have been much more furious about the whole thing if he wasn't trying his hardest not to suffocate in the piles of rock that are burying him which had only seconds before been solid and immobile. He can still see Peter though, he can see what Ego's power is doing to his boy, and he knows he needs to do something quick or they'll all be dead.

"I don't use my head to fly the arrow, boy!" he shouts over the sound of the planet rebelling all around them. "I use my heart!" The words are barely out before he's completely engulfed in stone and he fervently hopes it was enough. Peter has always been all heart, ever since he was a child. He's emotionally driven and wears his heart on his sleeve like a trophy. That might have been seen as a weakness to many but for Peter it had always been his biggest strength.

A lot of things happen all at once after that. There's a tremendous crash like the sound of the entire planet taking a gigantic step backwards and then Peter is raging against Ego with everything he has. They collide like meteors, tearing at each other and ripping apart the fabric of the planet with each blow. Each blow causes an earthquake, every punch leads to a landslide, and the entire world is crumbling around them.

Their plan is still only half-completed though. It will only work if Peter keeps Ego distracted long enough for Groot to plant the bomb. It will only work if Groot presses the right button and sets the timer correctly. There are a whole lot of 'ifs' and not a lot of room for error.

Fortunately, it seems that one of their 'ifs' is successful. There's a deep rumble and the planet shudders all over as the bomb detonates at its core. The ground buckles and fractures, crumbling in some places and dissolving in others. It won't be long before there's nothing left. They need to get the hell out of Dodge now or else they'll be sucked into the resulting implosion.

He catches sight of Peter and what remains of Ego, crumbling away and disintegrating like the planet that bears his name. Peter is on his knees, watching as his father breaks apart in his hands, and he's resigned himself to his fate, fully prepared to die along with the planet. Yondu has other plans about that though.

He swoops in and snatches Peter just as the ground collapses beneath him, looping one arm around the other man's waist and carrying them both away from the disintegrating planet. They don't have much time, a few seconds really, and it feels like it takes hours to weave their way through the columns of debris and destruction that are filling the spaces around them. The Ravager captain tightens his grip, holds Peter close, and carries him higher into the atmosphere.

It's getting harder to breathe now, the air thinner and colder and sharper. They don't have much time and it's one of the few times in his life he's ever wished for a few more minutes. There are so many things he needs to tell Peter, so many things he needs to say that he just doesn't have the time for. Instead he just slaps the single space suit they have between them onto Peter and holds on tight as the atmosphere around them continues to grow thinner and colder.

Peter doesn't realize it at first which is probably a good thing because he might have tried to stop it. He's watching the planet implode, expression unreadable as everything he'd ever known about his real father disappears in a cloud of ash and smoke. Yondu resists the urge that laugh at the cruel irony of it all.

"He may have been your father, Quill," he says with a faint grin, meeting Peter's eyes as the other man turns his attention away from the destroyed planet. "But he wasn't your daddy. I'm sorry I didn't do none of it right, but I'm damn proud you was my boy."

It's impossible to breathe now, to think or move or do much of anything. His body is beginning to freeze, blood literally turning to ice and skin turning solid. It's agonizing but it's okay because Peter is safe and that's all that matters. He knew he wouldn't be coming back from this the second Rocket gave him the suit. There was only one and the choice was either to keep it for himself or slap it on Peter the second he got a chance. It was never even a choice really.

He's spent a good majority of the past twenty years keeping Peter Quill alive and that hasn't changed now. Peter is the only thing he's ever done right in his life, the only thing he's ever been proud of, and if it means dying to keep him alive, he's more than happy to oblige.

Peter doesn't comprehend what he's saying at first, doesn't understand what he means, but then the look of confusion slowly transitions into horror as he realizes what's happening. "Yondu, what are you doing?!" he demands, looking from himself to the rapidly freezing Ravager in front of him.

He curses and starts tearing at the space suit around him, desperately trying to rip it off. "No, no, no," he mumbles frantically, pulling uselessly at the suit. "God, come on!"

With the very last of his strength Yondu reaches up and gently pats the side of Peter's face. _It's okay._ He can't speak, his lungs have frozen into solid blocks of ice in his chest, but he has enough strength for that and he hopes it will be enough.

He dies with Peter screaming his name and clinging to him in the open void of space. It's cold and it's dark and it's empty but that's okay. Peter was the only thing he's ever done right, he was his redemption and salvation even if he never realized it. He dies and it's okay.

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 **Thanks so much for reading guys! One more chapter left! :D**


	6. Reunion

**Hello all! Hope you're doing well! So I know the whole resurrection thing is a bit slap-dash in this chapter but I plan on fleshing it out a bit more in a future project (hopefully) Right now it's all a bit _deus ex machina_ but hopefully it's not too bad! Thanks so much for sticking with this story guys! I'm so happy you've all enjoyed it! :D**

* * *

Peter punches him straight in the face.

Granted, this was not exactly how he envisioned their reunion occurring but still, damn. The kid's always had one hell of a right hook and he definitely knows how to use it. He'd be surprised if the blow didn't break his nose.

He supposes he had that coming though, and yeah, it hurts like a mother, but he can't exactly say he blames Peter for his reaction either. It wasn't like he left the kid with a good final memory or anything. Hell, the last time he saw him Peter was screaming his name while he froze to death in the cold vacuum of space. So yeah, the punch hurt but it was understandable.

Once again, this was not how he wanted their reunion to go. In fact, if he's being honest with himself, he'd nearly made up his mind that he didn't want any kind of reunion with Peter, figuring it was best to let the Guardian move on with his life after everything that happened with Ego. Peter needed time to rebuild and recover and the best way for him to do that was to stay the hell away.

That didn't mean he stopped checking in on him though. Peter might think he's dead but he never lets the Guardian off his radar for very long. That's still his boy and Yondu has spent the better part of the past few decades making sure Peter never got in over his head (because Lord knows Peter is shit at keeping himself out of trouble) and dead, resurrected, or otherwise, that hasn't changed. He keeps an eye on Peter because he's always kept an eye on Peter even when the kid didn't realize it.

He never gets too involved and he certainly doesn't make his presence known; he just checks in occasionally to make sure Quill is still alive and kicking and hasn't landed himself in a world of trouble. He's fine staying on the outskirts of all this and Peter never needed to know. He was happy to keep it that way.

The universe had other plans, though, the tricky bastard. He was back in Peter's life, whether either of them wanted it or not, and now they're both left to deal with the fallout.

Yondu never believed in things like fate or destiny or anything like that because it was stupid and a waste of time but he's beginning to wonder if maybe he should reconsider his stance on that because seriously, _what are the odds_? Of every run down, seedy, backwoods bar in the entire damn universe to stumble into, he happened to end up in the one place Peter Quill is.

It was not intentional nor was it planned; had he known Quill would have swaggered his way into the bar like he owned the joint he might have just turned on his heel and walked the other way. As it was, he'd been sitting in one corner, getting quietly and contentedly hammered for the past hour, and if there was one face he never expected to see in a gutter bar like this it was Peter's.

Peter didn't see him when he walked in but then again he wasn't looking. For all intents and purposes, Yondu was still fully dead and gone out in the cold void of space. He resisted the urge to curse when he saw the man walk through the door because the place was small and if Peter spent more than exactly two seconds scanning the bar (idiot), he likely would have recognized the hunched, blue figure sitting against the far wall.

Yondu remedied this by sinking down a little further in his chair and adjusting the hood on his jacket. He wasn't hiding, that was stupid, but presumed dead or not there were still a lot of people who had a bounty out on his head the lower profile he kept, the better. However, all his efforts for discretion were in vain apparently because Peter didn't even seem to notice the movement, his attention focused elsewhere (once again, _idiot_ ).

The Guardian was here on a job, he had to be otherwise there would be no sane reason for him to be here. There were no signs of the others though which meant either this was a solo mission or they didn't know where he was. That thought set him on edge for some reason and he watched from the shadows as Quill sidled up to the bar with that goofy, open grin of his like he'd never been afraid of anything in his life.

He started a conversation with someone at the bar, too far away to hear the specifics, but from the look of things the man was not exactly happy to see him. Judging by the look on the other man's face and the tense, rigid way he was holding himself, this will turn into a fight before it's all over.

It seemed the man wasn't here alone, either. The surrounding tables and chairs were filled with people who were eyeing the exchange between Peter and the man he was speaking with like they were just waiting for the opportunity to strike. There was an electrified tension in the air, lightning hot and dangerous, and all it would take was one wrong move to set the entire thing off.

Said wrong move came in the form of someone flipping the safety off of their gun. There was a soft click as the lock was flipped and that was all it took for the bar to plunge into utter chaos almost immediately. People were screaming, glass was shattering, and the bar turned into a full blown war zone in the blink of an eye.

Peter flipped himself behind an overturned table a few feet away, narrowly dodging a laser blast that took away the top corner. He adjusted the setting on his gun (apparently the assignment, whatever it is, was capture not kill so he switched the setting to stun) and kept an eye on the group of people trying to shoot him from across the bar.

There were eight of them at least, all spread out and blocking the exit, and it was clear that none of them had any intention of letting anyone out of there. The other patrons who were unlucky enough to still be caught in the middle of all of it were now trapped there and there was no way to escape without running the risk of getting shot. There was about to be a lot of innocent blood spilled if something wasn't done in a hurry.

Peter seemed to realize this and tossed something small and metallic toward the closest wall. The blast was immediate and blew a large section of the wall out into the street, allowing several of the trapped patrons to escape the fire fight of the bar. At the same time, the Guardian leveled his gun at the nearest group of assailants, the three closest to the door, and fired an electrified wire net over them which instantly clamped together at the ends and rolled them into a tangled pile of guns and limbs. The currents in the net disabled their weapons and kept them painfully but not lethally disabled on the floor of the bar.

He managed to take down two more in the same fashion, effectively freeing the exit for the fleeing bar patrons. It all happened in a matter of minutes, impressive and a little terrifying in its efficiency, and Yondu couldn't quite suppress the tiny smirk of approval as he watched his boy in action. There had been a few times when Peter was a kid that he wondered if the Terran child would ever make for a decent Ravager. Now, watching him single-handedly take on an entire bar full of armed thugs with only his gun and a table for protection, he realized Peter turned out infinitely better.

Peter's stroke of luck was cut short though when an errant blast destroyed the table he was crouched behind and knocked him back a few feet. The blow wasn't lethal but it left him dazed for a second as the smoke cleared and that was all it took for the other men to move in. They would be on top of him in a matter of seconds and then it would be all over.

Yondu didn't realize he'd said anything until it was already out in the open. It was involuntary but then again he'd come to accept his weird knee-jerk reactions whenever Peter was involved. He saw the men approaching, guns raised and leveled, and all previous intentions he had of not getting involved went out the window. "Peter, get up!"

For a brief moment, Peter's expression contorted into stunned confusion because he recognized that voice and the impossibility behind it but there was no time to dwell on it. It was also abundantly clear that he wouldn't have time to pull his gun before they reached him and death is all but a certainty.

Once again, all of this took place in the span of seconds and the decision to move took even less time. Yondu quickly realized his choices were to a) stand by and watch Peter get shot in the face or b) blow his cover and intervene. And, as he'd dedicated the last several decades of his life to ensuring that Peter did not, in fact, get shot in the face, his decision was pretty easy.

He cleared the space between them in approximately four steps and shot the nearest man point blank in the chest. The man staggered back a few steps before he finally sagged to the ground in a heap. Peter might have been interested in keeping things as non-lethal as possible but Yondu had no such qualms about making the shot more final. Whatever job Peter was on probably stressed the catch-not-kill factor for the guy he was questioning earlier but likely didn't specify what to do with any backup he had in tow which meant they were fair game. They had guns and those guns were aimed at Peter and that just wasn't unacceptable.

The appearance of yet another person with a gun in the bar was surprising enough to make the second man pause for a split second and glance away from his original target, Peter, to the new threat, Yondu. That split second hesitation was all it took for the ex-Ravager to put a hole in his chest as well, dropping him just as efficiently as he had the other one. Now it was just the three of them, Peter, his intended mark, and Yondu.

From where he was standing, half in front of and half over Peter, the Guardian couldn't see his face. Yondu kept his back to him and his weapon raised, full attention focused on the last man still holding his a gun. He hadn't thought much past this point, what he was going to say to Peter, how he was going to address the whole not-being-dead situation, but he wasn't worried about that right now because this man still had a weapon which meant Peter was still in danger and once again, that was not acceptable.

Before anyone else could move, there was a loud, piercing wail of a siren from outside, a sure indication that the city enforcers were on their way. It made sense, they did just blow up half a building, but the enforcers in a place like this were often just as dangerous and deadly, if not more so, as the crimes and bar brawls they were sent to deal with. Run-ins typically ended with multiple broken bones and imprisonment if they were feeling generous; if not, well, people who ended up on a planet like this weren't likely to be missed by anyone so if they conveniently "disappeared" and were never seen or heard from again, there was little chance anyone would come looking for them.

The ex-Ravager muttered a curse and shot the man in the wrist in the same breath. The gun went flying and it's owner let out a pained yelp as blood began pouring from the wound. It wasn't fatal but it was probably permanent and he likely wouldn't be able to pick up a weapon again for a long time, if ever. None of that was Yondu's concern however; _his_ concern was getting Peter and himself the hell away from this bar before the enforcers get here.

While the man was still distracted with the gushing wound in his wrist, Yondu flipped the setting on his gun to stun and shot him in the chest. The man let out another pained yelp and collapsed the the ground as a jolt of electricity rippled through him. Catch-not-kill was so boring...

Threat eliminated, he turned just the slightest bit to grab a fistful of Peter's jacket and jerk him up off the floor. He didn't check to see if the Guardian was injured or upright or even following him; he just grabbed him and started moving. He kept his grip tight and took off running through the crumbling remains of the bar wall, Peter in tow.

The entire bar was swarmed with enforcers not five seconds after they fled. They would round up whoever was left alive and figure out what to do with the rest of them from there; that would likely put a kink in the outcome of Peter's job, whatever it was, but it was better than being dead. With that thought in mind, he dragged the still shell-shocked Guardian away from the bombed out ruins of the bar and further into the heart of the city.

Their flight came to an end after another block when Peter skidded to a stop in an alley and wrenched his wrist out of Yondu's grip. He planted his feet, leveled his gaze, and pulled his gun.

"Who the hell are you?"

Yondu kept his back turned, still not ready to face the reality of the situation; he seriously doubted Peter would be either. He was beginning to wonder if he should have just let go of Peter in one of the numerous alleys they'd run through and ducked the other way. He didn't really have a choice about getting involved earlier but he more than likely could have made a clean break by now if he'd just let go-

"I ain't gonna ask again," Peter growls from behind him and there's a heavy inflection of Ravager twang in his words, something he hadn't used in years. Peter had lost much of his drawl as he got older, the long, heavy accent slowly mellowing and fading out almost entirely. It was back now, though, with a vengeance.

There was the soft click of a gun behind him. The safety is off and Yondu doubts it's set to stun. It never really occurred to him that Peter might actually shoot him if he were so inclined. "Who are you?"

Yondu sighed heavily because there was no way to avoid it any longer. Peter was smart and if he hadn't figured it out already, he was about to. He braced himself for the inevitable fallout and let the hood of his jacket fall back as he turned back to face Peter. "How's it goin' runt?"

That's when Peter punched him. There was no hesitation, no gaping in stunned confusion, Peter took two steps forward and punched him straight in the face.

Yondu braces for it but he doesn't dodge it and the blow is hard enough to make him stagger back a few steps. It hurts but then again so did dying so he figures he's coming out a bit ahead this time around.

Peter is staring at him, fists clenched tightly at his sides. Now the look of shock and disbelief are written all across his face, the anger and incredulity and surprise. Peter is looking at him like he's seen a ghost and for all intents and purposes he has. People don't just come back from the dead like this (at least they shouldn't) and Peter needs some way to make sense of this situation before he loses his mind entirely.

"You son of a bitch," he grumbles shakily, his voice quavering with a hundred different emotions all at once. "I don't know what you're tryin' to pull here but you're about to be a dead man if you don't start talking right now."

The gun comes up again, level with Yondu's chest, and in spite of the shakiness in his voice, Peter's hand is steady. "You have exactly five seconds to tell me who you are before I blast you through the wall."

The ex-Ravager keeps his hands raised but his eyes stay locked with Peter's. "You know who I am, boy," he says slowly, keeping his voice level. "You've known me since you was a pup. This ain't exactly how I thought we'd be meetin' up again but…" he fades off with a slight shrug before looking back at the Guardian. "Put the gun down, son."

All at once Peter goes the color of plaster. He sways just a bit, dizzy and overwhelmed by the gravity of everything and if he weren't still holding a gun on him, Yondu might have stepped forward to steady him.

Peter's hand is shaking and a slow, full body tremble rattles him from the inside out. There's a flurry of emotions that slicker across his face that are too quick and jumbled to read. He shakes his head once, teeth clenched tightly. "You're not him," he growls, almost more to himself than to the other man. The gun is starting to shaking and Peter is beginning to shake more with it. "You're not him," he says a bit louder, voice cracking a little around the edges. "I watched you die!"

Yondu doesn't try to refute that because he can't; even though he's standing there, alive and breathing, it doesn't change that fact that he did, indeed, die in front of Peter.

"Yeah, ya did," he replies quietly and he can't quite erase the twinge of shame in his voice. "An' I'm real sorry 'bout that. Trust me, bein' dead wasn't no picnic for me either."

The joke falls flat and heavy like a waterlogged lead balloon. The guardian is staring at him in a mixture of disbelief, anger, grief, and more than a little wariness. It's not an expression he's seen on Peter in a long time and it's not one he enjoys seeing now. He hadn't expected it to be this hard, to see Peter so broken up, and a deep, heavy ball of guilt settles somewhere in the pit of his stomach.

"How…?" Peter asks brokenly, eyes never leaving the ex-Ravager.

Yondu shakes his head once. "I don't know."

The gun is gripped tighter in Peter's hand like it's the only thing tethering him to reality now. "Don't give me that bullshit!" he snarls, angry tears prickling at the corners of his eyes. "How are you standing here?!"

"I don't know!" the ex-Ravager roars back, frustrated and more than a little desperate himself. He sighs and shakes his head in defeat. "I don't know," he says again, voice soft and resigned.

Peter wants answers, that much is obvious, but the problem is that Yondu doesn't have any to give him. He doesn't know why he's alive or how it happened, all he knows is that one minute he's cold and dead in the empty vacuum of space and the next he's waking up naked as the day he was born on some planet called Kastyr on the outskirts of Knowhere.

He didn't know much when he first woke up, only that he was in more pain than he'd ever felt in his life. Every nerve felt shredded and raw, his entire body one giant gaping wound. He felt like he had been ripped apart and then crushed back together like a piece of scrap metal tumbling out of a compactor. His skin felt like broken glass, lungs filled with sandpaper, and he wondered what the point of being alive was if he was going to be in this much agony.

For one entire day he just laid on the ground, staring at the purple and gold nebula that glittered overhead. He wasn't sure how many hours he laid there, trying to convince himself to get up, but he finally did muster up the strength to pull himself off the ground, the act of standing up alone took the rest of the day. By the time he was upright, it was dark again.

By some stroke of luck, a party of merchants had touched down less than a mile away and he was able to stagger toward the light of their ship. They took him in, gave him clothes, and got him off that God-forsaken planet and back into known space. He was eternally grateful to them but he couldn't provide them with any useful information about himself when they asked where he had come from. His mind wasn't a blank slate, not quite, but it seemed that every one of his memories had been carefully wrapped in several layers of cotton and he just couldn't pull it all away.

It took days for him to even remember his own name, a full week and half to remember he'd been a Ravager. It came back slowly, bits and pieces at a time, and it took months before he remembered enough to piece things together. There were still holes here and there, gaps and spaces that could be filled but were probably best left blank for the time being. A month and a half after his death, he located Kraglin's ship and sent a message.

The other Ravager's response had been remarkably similar to Peter's in that he didn't believe it was him at first. He ignored the message, bounced it back with a string of vulgar obscenities and a threat to shut up or he'd hunt him down and shut him up himself. Yondu was undeterred and sent another message. And another. And another until finally Kraglin was forced to accept it and meet his messenger head on. He opened the message and came face-to-face with his previously dead ex-Captain and promptly fell out of his chair.

It had been an unexpected reunion to say the least and neither of them understood how or why it had happened but they didn't spend much time dwelling on it. Yondu was back, he was alive, the universe kept moving. Except it seems Peter isn't nearly as passive about his resurrection as Kraglin was.

Peter looks like he's torn between taking another swing and taking off in the opposite direction. He's frantic and pacing, circling back and forth in the small space of the alley like he's desperately trying to regain some kind of control of the situation. His hands are shaking, hell, all of him is shaking, and the pallor of his skin is a little concerning.

"Why?" he asks finally, slowing his frantic pacing and fixing the ex-Ravager with a look that's equal parts leery and borderline furious. "Why did you do it?"

Yondu feels like he's been punched again. "Boy, I didn't raise you to be stupid. What kinda question is that? You know why I did what I did."

Peter shakes his head once, angry tears still wavering in his eyes. "You had no right," he says quietly, his voice a rough whisper when he speaks. "You had no right to do something that stupid."

Yondu does lose what little patience he still possesses then and he can't quite rope in the sardonic scoff that tears out of him. "I had _every_ right!" he growls back, red eyes narrowed sharply at the Guardian. "You may not like what I did, brat, but I don't regret it. You're the only half-decent thing I ever did in my life an' I sure as hell wasn't gonna let that jackass father'a yours get the upper hand. Be mad all ya want, Quill, but I don't regret my choices if it meant savin' you."

"I didn't want you to die for me!" Peter shouts back suddenly, all the anger and grief and raw emotion spilling out into his voice like a flash flood. "I didn't want you to save me at the cost of your own life, you asshole! I didn't want to live when I had to watch you die right in front of me! It was like losing my mom all over again!" He glares, breathing hard and harsh like he's right on the verge of hyperventilating. "I already watched one parent die in front of me and I didn't want you to be the second!"

And damn, doesn't that hit like a punch in the gut. He doesn't regret what he did, never had and never will, but he regrets what it's done to Peter. He didn't have to deal with the aftermath, the cleanup and the disposal and the grief that came with it; he was dead and cold and nothing so it didn't matter. In a very private, fleetingly selfish way he's glad for that.

But Peter did. Peter had to pick up the pieces and move on, cope with everything that had happened and learn how to live with it. Peter blamed himself, that much was painfully obvious, and it's the one thing Yondu never wanted him to do. He didn't want Peter to fight with the survivor's guilt, to blame himself for the ex-Ravager's choices. Yondu's decision was his own and he accepted that but now Peter is shouldering the responsibility for it.

"Peter," he says quietly, reaching out with one hand toward the distraught Guardian.

"You shouldn't have…" Peter mutters softly, voice broken and jagged around the edges like shattered glass. He's stopped pacing and he's standing still and heaving in the confined space of the alley. All at once he looks more worn and exhausted than he has any right to, stretched thin and pulled too far in every conceivable direction. He's one step away from crumbling and when Yondu's hand catches his arm, he lets it happen.

In the span of a second he closes the space between them, gripping two thick fistfuls of the ex-Ravager's jacket and pushing him into the wall. For a very brief moment, Yondu wonders if he's about to attack him again. But Peter doesn't attack him, he doesn't take another swing or reach for his gun or anything of the sort. Instead, he sags against him, hands still gripping his jacket like it's the only thing keeping him from drowning. He's shaking all over, trembling so hard it's a wonder he's still standing, and his forehead is pressed against the other man's chest.

Yondu freezes because he's not exactly sure what else he should do in this situation. He's never been big on physical contact and his first instinct is to push Peter away. But he doesn't, not this time. He stands stock still and motionless against the wall while Peter grips the front of his jacket like a tether.

Peter, for his part, isn't doing much different. He just stands there, shaking and breathing and holding on. He's not speaking anymore, either too stunned or exhausted to try carrying on a conversation, and the backs of his hands are white from the grip he has on the ex-Ravager's jacket. He's still trembling but it's beginning to die down and he slumps a bit more against the man in front of him.

He's not sure why but slowly, very slowly, Yondu moves his arms up and wraps them around Peter's back. It's not a hug; he can count on one hand the number of times he's ever hugged Peter and half of those were more or less a headlock rather than an honest to God embrace. It's not a hug; he's just wrapping his arms around the Guardian to make sure he doesn't fall over because even though it's died down by now, Peter is still shaking like a leaf. It's not a hug; that's what he tells himself at least.

He wraps his arms around the other man's back and holds on as the trembling slowly lessens. Peter is heavy and tall and awkward against his chest but he holds onto him because he can't bring himself to let go.

"You're such an asshole," Peter mumbles against his chest, hands still gripped tightly in the fabric of his jacket. The words are coarse and broken and heavy and so is Peter.

"I know, kid," Yondu mutters back, keeping his arms wrapped tightly around Peter's back. He holds on a little tighter, pulling Peter a bit closer to his chest as the Guardian sags against him. There's nothing else he can do and for the moment there's nothing else he wants to do. He keeps his arms around Peter and holds on. "I know."

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 **Thanks again for reading guys! Y'all are the best! :D**


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